January 2005 Archives

Is Bill O'Reilly having trouble distinguishing between the word "truth" and the world "troops"? Or, he is just going out of his way to mislead his listeners in order to take a cheap and dishonest shot at the courageous Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)?

I think I may have to go with the latter.

As you may remember, during her great nomination hearing questioning of Secretary of State Rice, Sen. Boxer at one point questioned Rice's "respect for the truth." But O'Reilly is telling his listeners that Boxer questioned Rice's respect for the troops.

I mean, really. Listen to the tape, Bill.

Worse, Media Matters for America catches O'Reilly not listening to two callers who try to correct him. In fact, O'Reilly said to one of these callers:

If you're gonna call the program -- this isn't the usual talk show where you can just blather about stuff you don't know anything about -- I'm gonna ask you questions. I'm gonna ask you to back up your position with facts.

Talk show host, heal thyself.

The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes implicitly endorses a 21st Century version of the Sedition Act:

At his news conference last week, Bush reacted calmly to their vitriolic attacks, suggesting only a few Democrats are involved. Stronger countermeasures will be needed, including an unequivocal White House response to obstructionism, curbs on filibusters, and a clear delineation of what's permissible and what's out of bounds in dissent on Iraq. (emphasis added)

In a free United States, Mr. Barnes, the White House does not get to decide just what kinds of dissent against it are acceptable and unacceptable.

I bet there was a time when Barnes would have agreed with that idea -- at least prior to January 20, 2001.

While we analyze what the Iraqi elections mean, Charles Pierce reminds us all of an important point about the brave Iraqi voters in his latest Altercation post:

You do not own their courage.

The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.

Taegan Goodard's Political Wire highlights a flashback that should keep all of us from getting too optimistic too soon about the impact of the weekend's Iraqi elections.

Keith Olbermann blogs again about the SpongeBob SquarePants controversy that began when he accurately reported Focus on the Family Founder Dr. James Dobson's inaccurate charge that the cartoon character was part of a pro-homosexual agenda.

Not that there's anything wrong with that agenda. Civil rights, human rights, equality, and tolerance being virtues in this blogger's world.

Well, Focus on the Family continues to create an alternate reality to justify their hate-filled views. Olbermann rightly calls them on it:

Schneeberger finishes his piece with the hope that I’ll experience the same kind of epiphany he claims to have in 1997. “Let’s pray, if he ever does, that he comes up with the right answer - and not because it may lead to fairer reporting. But because it may lead to a redeemed life.”

Hey, guys, worry about yourselves. You’re spewing hate, while assuming that for some reason, God has chosen you and you alone in all of history to understand the mysteries of existence, when mankind’s existence is filled with ample evidence that nobody yet has been smart enough to discern an answer.

If there is a values debate to lose, liberals and progressives should not be losing it to these intolerant people.

Over on Altercation, Charles Pierce highlights some anonymous people who are going to show real courage this weekend: Iraqi voters.

Some people are going to vote even though they've been told they will be killed if they do. Nobody in this 40-percent turnout, sucker-for-the-cheap-wedge-issue, talk-show-babbling country of ours has a right to do anything but admire that, and make sure that the undeniable courage on display doesn't get sold down the river for a three-point bump in some future Gallup Poll. This war isn't just a monumental blunder. It's also an ongoing act of betrayal by a bunch of second-rate thinkers who never in their lives have displayed an ounce of the courage that some anonymous woman in Baghdad will evince today.

The Washington Post's Frank Ahrens reports on another small victory in the battle against media consolidation:

The Bush administration yesterday abandoned plans to ask the Supreme Court to allow a set of controversial rules to take effect that would have loosened restrictions on how large media conglomerates could grow.

The Bush Administration really, really thinks the American people are gullible. In their budget world, worse is better. Political Animal Kevin Drum sums up today's White House deficit liesline:

So last year's deficit was $412 billion, and this year's deficit will be $427 billion, but they're still "on track" to cut the deficit in half.

So, after years of Republicans calling their Social Security plans "privatization" or "partial privatization" and talking about diverting payroll taxes into "private accounts," the White House has decreed that we are actually talking about "personal accounts."

And how does our esteemed so-called liberal media handle this Orwellian change in our political lexicon?

As Josh Marshall reports, by quickly moving to comply with the directive. You can almost hear these reporters respond with a resounding "How High!" to the White House's demand that they jump to the new wording. See Marshall's examples here and here.

Liberal media. Yeah. Right.

Update: The esteemed editorial cartoonist Tom Toles puts this into perspective.

I am pleased to offer an enthusiastic endorsement of Daily Kos' Vote No on Gonzales campaign. As the poster Armando explains:

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.

Again, this is not a battle we are likely to win. The Republicans have enough votes to put Gonzales in the Attorney Generals' chair.

But Democrats should not feel any need to aid this disgrace. The "advice and consent" clause of the Constitution has not, to my knowledge, been amended into a "rubber stamp of a Republican president" clause.

Opposition parties need to know when to oppose. With this nomination, and that of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, it is time to oppose.

Update: James Wolcott reminds us that it is not just the torture memos that should disqualify Gonzales for the AG job. We should also remember, as Wolcott quotes Peter Carlson, that Gonzales and then-Governor George W. Bush "were rather callous, even cavalier, about the most profound decision any government official can make -- the decision to kill another human being."

James Wolcott makes an important observation:

Why is Barbara Boxer out there all alone asking the tough questions about Condi Rice's snail trail of deceit and fearmongering? She has the audacity to act as if the Senate actually has some traditional advise-and-consent role to play and for her pains is caricatured as a shrieking harridan on Saturday Night Live and a witch on talk radio.

Oh, yeah. That's right. It doesn't. How about that.

At some point the Senate Democrats have to take a stand. Don't they?

The Bull Moose catches a conservative economic leader stumbling head-on into the truth behind President George W. Bush's irresponsible Social Security privatization plan:

"Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," said Stephen Moore, the former president of Club for Growth, an antitax group. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."

The only question now is whether you are going to fall for the Bushies' Orwellian use of our language. Are you going to take more notice of the nice-sounding focus-grouped phrases, or the actual policies behind them?

The Associated Press' Alan Fram reports on provisions likely to be a part of President George W. Bush's upcoming budget:

President Bush is readying a new budget that would carve savings from Medicaid and other benefit programs, congressional aides and lobbyists say, but it is unclear if he will be able to push the plan through the Republican-run Congress.

White House officials are not saying what Bush's $2.5 trillion 2006 budget will propose saving from such programs, which comprise the biggest and fastest growing part.

But lobbyists and lawmakers' aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, say he will focus on Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income and disabled people. Medicaid costs are split between Washington and the states.

But don't be fooled.

This Administration's outrageously irresponsible fiscal policies have created the crisis which they hope to use, as conservative uber-activist Grover Norquist has put it, "to starve the beast."

This is a choice. The Bush Administration could choose instead to reverse some of their grossly fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the rich. Instead, they are going to tinker around with Medicaid.

Our plutocrats remain hard at work.

James Wolcott turns his eye toward Washington, D.C.'s inaugural lockdown:

I only caught snippets of the coverage today--jury duty--but I was impressed once again by how skillfully the reporters, pundits, and historians managed to dismiss the evidence of their own eyes. Despite the fact that there was no specific terrorist threat, the security was unprecedented even for these unprecedented times, with FBI snipers on rooftops, clusters of antiaircraft missiles, layers of police and checkpoints, video command centers monitoring every spilled cup of coffee (CNN's Kelli Arena provided an inside peek), and rows of empty bleachers. The commentators noted this clampdown with a sigh of regret, and mentioned the "irony" of President Bush using the words "freedom" and "liberty" dozens of times in his address while the city was under such tight constriction. But this has gone past way irony now into total cognitive dissonant breakdown. Commentators refuse to recognize the ominous import of the stepped-up militarization of the parade and pageantry, and increasingly of civilian life in this country under a president who likes to wear neat little uniforms that say, "Me commander-in-chief."

Steve Clemons provides some thought-provoking analysis of the inaugural-week situation in Washington, D.C.:

American democracy -- and the symbolic representation of its transparency, openness, and access -- is what Washington is supposed to exemplify. But when inaugural parades become 'invite only' -- and we mar the beauty and block general access to the marble and stone of monuments on the mall and in the tidal basin -- not to even get into the fences, barriers, and permanently blocked roads around the White House and Capitol -- then we have symbolically and visually what we voted for: a high fear/low trust government and nation.

President George W. Bush made another confusing gesture to the world during yesterday's inaugural parade.

Blowhard Bill O'Reilly does not like the ACLU. But naturally he does not stop there. After all, why pass up an opportunity to compare ACLU members with the worst killers of the 20th Century?

The invaluable Media Matters for America reports on statements O'Reilly made during his January 19 radio show:

O'REILLY: They won't even tell you in the statement what intelligent design entails. They won't mention a creator, a deity, a God. You know why? Because the ACLU then can haul them into court and cost them $100,000 to defend themselves. Fascism, fascism, fascism. Okay? Ah, drive me nuts! Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin. Castro probably is. And so would Mao Zedong.

Atrios highlights a fine example of Republican class and virtue on display during the inauguration festivities.

So, now we know Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's real agenda: starving California's state government. The Governor told the Sacramento Bee editorial board:

"We want to feed the private sector, and we want to starve the public sector."

Schwarzenegger has apparently learned well this twisted theory's lessons. After all, his first official act as Governor was to make this state's budget deficit four billion dollars a year larger.

Yeah, that's responsible.

So, Californians, now you know the plan. Those cuts to education, health and human services, and transportation? It's not about serving the people. It's about the ideological dream of starving the beast.

Remember that the next time you hear Schwarzengger referred to as a "moderate."

And as the Los Angeles Times' Steve Lopez explains, it is time for us to demand the Governor to get real when it comes to his frequent attacks on special interests. He writes:

I've heard the term tossed around so liberally, I don't even know what it means anymore. Take, for instance, this snippet from the governor's State of the State speech:

"I know the special interests will oppose all the reforms I have mentioned. Any time you try to remove one dollar from the budget, there are five special interests tugging on the other end. Any time you try to make something more efficient, there are a half-dozen special interests trying to prevent it."

What, fourth-graders without textbooks?

The sick?

The old and feeble?

Those special interests?

Schwarzenegger apparently does not include within his definition all of those companies and people who have made him the most successful political fundraiser in California history. (More than $26 million in his first year in office.) This after he implied during his recall election campaign that he would not need to raise money because he had so much of his own.

As Lopez later explains, a joke running around state government circles is that the Governor's definition of a special interest is any person or any group that has not yet written him a check.

But he's a moderate. So I guess we shall not make much note of his hypocrisy.

Eric Alterman has a quite accurate and depressing look at what the reelection and inauguration mean for our nation.

Before November 2, we could argue it was all a mistake; the guy ran as a “compassionate conservative,” misrepresented his record, Nader screwed everything up, and we actually voted for Gore anyway. It took the Republicans on the Supreme Court—two of whom were appointed by the guy’s dad—to stick the country with this regime filled with ideological fanatics and corrupt incompetents. Now, what are we to say? Fifty-nine million members of our nation do not mind that we were deliberately misled into a war that has drained our blood and treasure to create nothing but hatred and chaos; and that the very people who were at fault have been rewarded and promoted, encouraged to look for new targets to spread their hubristic malevolence.

Alterman also shares a joke going around that, alas, describes the current state of political debate quite well:

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

The president spoke about freedom and liberty in his inauguration speech. Nice words. But I have learned not to value Bush's rhetoric. After seeing this "uniter, not a divider" work, I'll wait to see what he actually does this term.

Meanwhile, as my friend Tim Farley noted in an e-mail dispatch, the tight security arrangements kept thousands from witnessing the swearing in ceremony and speech. The BBC's Kevin Anderson writes:

This time round, there was a blanket of security to match the blanket of snow.

Helicopters circled the Capitol. Military planes patrolled the skies and enforced a no-fly zone over Washington.

Coast Guard boats patrolled the Potomac River, watching not only the waters but also the bridges leading into Washington.

Spectators had to pass through security checkpoints and faced tight restrictions on what could be brought to the inauguration and to parade.

Thousands who had hoped to watch the inauguration from the National Mall missed the event because of long security queues.

A group of 100 students from Long Island, New York, stood in the cold for four hours but did not make it through the security checkpoint to see the event.

Those who missed the event complained that there were not sufficient security personnel to handle the huge crowds.

That backdrop, moreover, certainly did not enhance that freedom and liberty message. As Tim Farley wrote in his e-mail account of his inauguration attendance:

During the president's speech, he spoke of freedom and liberty all over the world. He must have used the word liberty a dozen to 20 times. Yet when we were walking away from the Capitol after the speech, there were police and guards and secret service everywhere. There were soldiers with machine guns on the streets of our nation's capital. The irony was not missed by many who listened on about freedom and liberty everywhere but here. It was not an uplifting experiece. Really who is the president worried about? some vague terror threat or the americans?

Given Secretary of State Designate Condoleezza Rice's refusal to answer direct questions, take responsibility for her "misstatements" prior to the launching of the Iraq War, or to provide information about key issues during her nomination testimony, I am quite disappointed that only two Democrats had the courage to vote against recommending her nomination to the full Senate.

The Hill reports on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's deliberations over whether to use the so-called "nuclear option" to change the Senate's rules to end the practice of filibusters on judicial nominations. As Alexander Bolton explains:

A more narrow interpretation of Frist’s statement is that he declined to acquiesce on the section of Rule 22 that governs ending debate on an amendment to the rules. In the last Congress, most Senate experts interpreted Rule 22 to require a vote of two-thirds of the Senate to end debate on a proposed rules change. By declining to accept that reading, Frist could make a rules change with a simple majority vote. That tactic is known as the “nuclear option” because it would likely melt relations between Republicans and Democrats.

Nor will hypocrisy slow the GOP down. Take, for example, this instance uncovered by the Center for American Progress of Frist himself joining in a filibuster of one of President Clinton's judicial nominees.

We have learned by hard examples that the GOP Congressional leadership is ready to play hardball. Are the Senate Democrats ready for this fight?

The Rittenhouse Review's Jim Capozzola posts a request from one of our nation's soldiers in Iraq that I think is well worth your consideration.

The Los Angeles Times' Ronald Brownstein writes:

The strains on the volunteer military from the war in Iraq are now unsettling as many Republicans as Democrats — and exposing an enduring contradiction in President Bush's agenda.

Conservative defense analysts and GOP legislative leaders are raising alarms over the pressures that Iraq is imposing on the military, especially the part-time Army National Guard and Reserve. With growing urgency, these critics argue that the Pentagon is relying too heavily on the citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserve in Iraq because the administration has refused to enlarge the size of the full-time military enough to meet new demands.

It is also interesting how conservatives could reach this conclusion only after the election.

Jeanne over at Body and Soul points out this incredible exchange from this Washington Post interview with President George W. Bush:

The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?

THE PRESIDENT: You mean, the personal savings accounts?

The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been --

THE PRESIDENT: We don't want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.

The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes?

The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. We had to figure this out, because we're in an argument with the RNC [Republican National Committee] about how we should actually word this. [Post staff writer] Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.

THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now?

The Post: You used partial privatization.

THE PRESIDENT: I did, personally?

The Post: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: When?

The Post: To describe it.

THE PRESIDENT: When, when was it?

The Post: Mike said it was right around the election.

THE PRESIDENT: Seriously?

The Post: It was right around the election. We'll send it over.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm surprised. Maybe I did. It's amazing what happens when you're tired. Anyway, your question was? I'm sorry for interrupting.

I guess this is yet another unfortunate example, as The Daily Show's Rob Corddry pointed out last year, of the facts having an anti-Bush agenda.

Atrios is right. We need to know whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas really said the following, as claimed by new Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker:

Parker said Thomas told him a judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution.

Justice Thomas took an oath when he became a Supreme Court Justice. If he finds that he cannot abide by that oath, he should resign.

So, this is a big deal. Reporters, even though the conservative message machine will scream you are biased for asking, this is a legitimate question that concerns the foundation of our constitutional form of government.

President George W. Bush on Osama bin Laden from today's Washington Post story by Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher:

As for perhaps the most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the administration has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to locate the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Asked why, Bush said, "Because he's hiding."

In that case, Mr. President, I guess it would be unfair to have an accountability moment concerning the fact that bin Laden remains at large 1,217 days since you promised to capture him "dead or alive."

President George W. Bush's war against accountability continues. The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher open a story about an interview with the president with this:

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

Now that our nation has finally admitted (after the election, naturally) that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, where is our "accountability moment" for those troops? Those who have died or were injured fighting for something that your government no longer believes to be true?

Mr. President, we have not begun to have an accountability moment for Iraq. Not even close. And now that the Iraq your policies have created has become a magnet for terrorist activity, our nation's accountability moment also may not yet have arrived.

Via Taegan Goodard's Political Wire, President George W. Bush gets the gets the quote of the day:

"I think one of the things I've learned is that sometimes words have consequences you don't intend them to mean. `Bring them on' is a classic example."

Later in the Hartford Courant article, our president tries to explain away his promise to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive".

"It was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it. It was just there," Bush recalled. "I wouldn't call it regret, but it is a lesson a president must be mindful of ... the consequences of the words."

Oh, and by the way, Mr. President, it has been 1,216 days since you said you wanted to catch Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Some of us still think that a worthwhile goal.

Another example of the Bush Administration's prowess at creating more problems for our nation. And this one is a doozy -- and one many people predicted when arguing against going to war with Iraq.

The Washington Post's Dana Priest reports:

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

At least our great leader President George W. Bush apparently will not have his worldview cluttered by such unpleasant news and analysis.

Over on Altercation, Charles Pierce has some excellent advice for CBS News. Alas, there is absolutely no chance they will take it.

I rise today to offer some unsolicited advice to Dan Rather and CBS -- to wit, unleash hell.

You got suckered. By whom is still a mystery, but you got suckered. Get up off the damn canvas. If they're going to accuse you of being out to get the Avignon Presidency anyway, then by God, do it for real. Start by digging into the AWOL story, which is still out there. (In fact, dig into the Pundit Payola scandal and see how many lines cross between the two stories.) Go after the assault on Valerie Plame, everything we weren't told about the 9/11 whitewash, and the ongoing laundering of the crazy intelligence culture that led us into a war. (A little press criticism there wouldn't hurt, either.) Compare it to the current run-up to the demolition of Social Security. Point it out every time C-Plus Augustus tells an outright lie, the way that he did the other day. "The president's remarks seem to bear no relation to the actual facts..." would be a nice way to start one story per newscast.

Load up the foreign coverage again. Vet the nominees yourself. Start with Chertoff, who ran Al D'Amato's Whitewater comic charade and who never moved far off GOP dirty tricks until he started devising ways to wipe his feet on the Bill of Rights. Ted Olson would be a nice second-day story, I would think. Squeeze your sources for every leak. Nothing is off the record. There are no gentlemen's agreements because there are no gentlemen. Shame your competitors by doing the job correctly. No fear. No favor. Truth, not fairness.

There is nothing like watching our so-called liberal media at work.

Um. Hello? National media? This story is a big, big deal.

With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.

Section 5. "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum..." (emphasis added)

Really, how moronic must we be to listen to these people lecture us about original intent after they pull such a stunt? The only intent they care about is their own to have power at any cost.

"I think (the new rule) is terrible in a whole host of ways - first, I think it's unconstitutional," said Norm Ornstein, a counselor to the independent Continuity of Government Commission, a bipartisan panel created to study the issue. "It's a very foolish thing to do, I believe, and the way in which it was done was more foolish."

GOP House leaders pushed the provision as part of a larger rules package that drew attention instead for its proposed ethics changes, most of which were dropped.

Usually, 218 lawmakers - a majority of the 435 members of Congress - are required to conduct House business, such as passing laws or declaring war.

But under the new rule, a majority of living congressmen no longer will be needed to do business under ``catastrophic circumstances.''

But instead of taking the threat seriously, they pass an unconstitutional provision. Buried within another bill.

Let me know when the Republican Party wants to take these issues seriously -- because people serious about this threat never would have considered such unconstitutional foolishness.

(Thanks to Air America Radio's Randi Rhodes for making this an issue.)

The Bull Moose writes that it is time for progressives to redefine the culture of life debate in this country, and expose the pro-life phonies.

Speaking of presidential lies, Atrios is right: when is the media going to hold President George W. Bush accountable for his lies about Social Security?

Actually, these lies should serve a useful purpose -- if they ensure the death of President Bush's fiscally irresponsible plan. (Does he have any other type?)

Social Security will crowd out other government spending in the next 15-20 years. This is a big problem -- if you support programs other than Social Security. Medicare represents an even larger fiscal problem on a faster time scale.

So, we need reform. But not the misleading blather emanating from this White House.

Remember all those statements and warnings and scare tactics that President George W. Bush and members of his Administration told us about weapons of mass destruction to justify our invasion of Iraq?

No longer operative. Officially. The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer writes:

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.

In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.

Sorry. No way lying about the rationale for going to war is as important. How silly of me.

You will excuse me if I decide to take my lectures about morality from a different group of people.

Tom Tomorrow points out a quote from Mel Gibson that seems to indicate that the conservatives' favorite movie maker may be going off the script:

"I feel a strange kinship with Michael [Moore]," Mr. Gibson said. "They're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but it's a hologram. They really have got nothing to do with one another. It's just some kind of device, some left-right. He makes some salient points. There was some very expert, elliptical editing going on. However, what the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there."

In the Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan makes an excellent observation about part of the Democratic Party's electoral problems:

Since their devastating loss last fall, Democrats have cast about for reasons why their party has come up short three election cycles in a row and have debated what to do. Should they lure better candidates? Talk more about morality? Adopt a harder line on national security? But one of the most obvious and least discussed reasons Democrats continue to lose is their consultants. Every sports fan knows that if a team boasts a losing record several seasons in a row, the coach has to be replaced with someone who can win. Yet when it comes to political consultants, Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step.

That practice really has to stop. As Albert Einstein once noted, insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It is time to try something, and many somebodies, new.

In a story about how the hot topic in Washington, D.C., is now whether to pull our troops out of Iraq, Taegan Goodard's Political Wire quotes a bleak assessment from Stratfor:

"The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn't happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas."

In a comment on Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog, Aaron Radcliffe urges people to check out an excellent analysis of the torture memos written by a former Office of Legal Council lawyer.

In four posts, Marty Lederman of the Balkinization blog goes into great detail about the memos and provides a great analysis of the issues surrounding them.

I think it is well worth your time to check out the four posts, here, here, here, and here.

One of the occasionally independent-mindeduncooperative committee chairpersons removed from his post by the House Republican leadership this week was the Veterans Affairs Committee Chairperson.

The offense? As the Washington Post's Mike Allen writes:

House leaders also replaced Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who was beloved by veterans and did not hold down spending the way leaders wanted. The new chairman is Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), who convinced party leaders during a rigorous job interview that he would be tougher.

A leadership aide described Smith as "just not a team player." To underscore their point, leaders not only demoted Smith but also removed him from the committee.

Dennis Cullinan, national legislative service director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW), said it would be an “absolute disaster” that “such an effective chairman would be removed for political reasons.”

He said it would send the wrong message to U.S. troops, adding, “We’re at war.”

Nice.

Smith's demotion likely is just an appetizer. Look for the Republicans to team up with the Bush Administration to slash Veterans benefits because they are supposedly too expensive.

Because, as we all know, irresponsible tax cuts for the rich are far more important to the GOP.

Here's a good summation of the House Republicans' opening week, during which their leadership centralized control, weakened ethics rules, and removed occasionally independent-mindeduncooperative committee chairpersons:

"It took Democrats 40 years to get as arrogant as we have become in 10," one Republican leadership aide said.

Atrios links to a story highlighting another Bush Administration abuse of taxpayer money:

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same. The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

What this says about Armstrong Williams (and it is not good) is not nearly as important as noting how shabbily the Bush Administration treats your taxpayer dollars.

This is clearly a political activity. No taxpayer money should go for it. President George W. Bush has a proven track record as a fundraiser. For him, $240,000 is just a few phone calls away.

We must not tolerate this abuse of power. I wish Rep. George Miller luck in getting to the bottom of it.

Let the conservative whining begin. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has agreed to sign a challenge brought by some House Democrats to Ohio's 20 electoral votes when Congress meets today to count the electoral votes tally.

This will force both chambers to have a 2-hour debate about the issue. As the Associated Press' Alan Fram explains:

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., signed a challenge mounted by House Democrats to Ohio's 20 electoral votes, which put Bush over the top. By law, a protest signed by members of the House and Senate requires both chambers to meet separately for up to two hours to consider it. Lawmakers are allowed to speak for no more than five minutes each.

"I have concluded that objecting to the electoral votes from Ohio is the only immediate way to bring these issues to light by allowing you to have a two-hour debate to let the American people know the facts surrounding Ohio's election," Boxer wrote in a letter to Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, a leader of the Democratic effort.

It is a disgrace to this nation that our election procedures were not fixed after the Florida debacle in 2000. I do not personally think that Ohio was stolen, the gap there and nationally is just too large, but there were many irregularities with the voting there.

We really need to fix the problems. Now. This has to stop. As the four electors from my former home state of Maine noted when they cast their electoral college votes on December 13:

Our four electoral votes are held meaningless if our sister states cannot hold elections that are fair, accurate, and verifiable.

So, yes. Unlike 2000, it is time to protest. As a Californian, I am proud that Senator Boxer decided to sign on to this protest -- and she can handle the pounding she will take from the conservative media machine. It is well past the time to focus some sunshine on these problems.

And unlike after 2000, it is time to fix our voting systems and take the steps necessary to ensure we can trust that all our votes are being counted accurately. We must not expect any less from the United States of America.

Um, this could be a problem. The Washington Post's Bradley Graham writes:

The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

In the memo, dated Dec. 20, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly lashed out at what he said were outdated and "dysfunctional" policies on mobilizing and managing the force. He complained that his repeated requests to adjust the policies to current realities have been rebuffed by Pentagon authorities.

Too bad our members of Congress weren't paying attention. As Graham reports:

On Capitol Hill, Helmly's memo drew expressions of surprise and alarm. Several lawmakers predicted that the general's blunt comments would fuel an already charged debate over whether the United States has enough forces in Iraq and enough in the Army generally.

It's a little late, but perhaps Congress could remember that it does have a oversight role. Right about now would be a good time to start taking it a bit more seriously.

Ben Wikler of the Al Franken Show blog posts a stunning excerpt about President George W. Bush from the Nelson Report, a well-regarded insider newsletter.

There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear “bad news.”

Rather, Bush makes clear that all he wants are progress reports, where they exist, and those facts which seem to support his declared mission in Iraq...building democracy. “That's all he wants to hear about,” we have been told. So “in” are the latest totals on school openings, and “out” are reports from senior US military commanders (and those intelligence experts still on the job) that they see an insurgency becoming increasingly effective, and their projection that “it will just get worse.”

Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.

Real leaders do not shrink from bad news. They redouble their efforts to find real solutions to the problems facing them.

I hope Chris Nelson's reporting is wrong. Nothing against him, of course. I just do not want to believe any president could be so irresponsible. But based on what we have learned about President Bush the past few years, I fear Nelson is on to something.

White House press corps? Bueller? Bueller?

The Bull Moose feels little sympathy for those Bush supporters finding it difficult to afford tickets to the President George W. Bush's upcoming inaugural festivities.

Let them eat cake indeed. We live at a time when wounded troops returning from Iraq have their incomes reduced because they are denied full combat pay, but America can afford a $40 million gala party.

Or not.

The mountain of debt being piled up by President George W. Bush's policies continued to grow in December 2004. During that month, the national debt increased by $70.96 billion.

For the year 2004, the national debt increased by $594.85 billion from $7,001,312,247,818.28 ($7.001 trillion) to $7,596,165,867,424.14 ($7.596 trillion), or about $1.63 billion a day.

The national debt has increased by $1.868 trillion since President Bush entered office.

I doubt future generations will take kindly to fiscal conservatism's slide into gross fiscal irresponsibility -- or to the implicit tax increases to which this Bush debt accumulation will lead.

Rick Hasen links from his Election Law blog to a Roll Call editorial that opens by setting a good standard for elections:

Every day, tens of millions of people use ATMs in utter confidence that their bank transactions will be accurately recorded. And as Bank of America brags in its television ads, it processes 10 billion checks annually with an error rate close to zero. This year, and the sooner the better, Congress ought to make America’s voting system work like that.

It is simply unacceptable that four years after the Florida presidential vote debacle that editorial boards still need to make such requests.

Hello, Congress? Hello, President Bush? Could you now please take the steps necessary to ensure we can be confident that votes shall be counted accurately?

This is a very important thing. Really. It is.

From Reuters:

A reported U.S. plan to keep some suspected terrorists imprisoned for a lifetime even if the government lacks evidence to charge them in courts was swiftly condemned on Sunday as a "bad idea" by a leading Republican senator.

But at least Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) was willing to make this point.

Now we'll see if it matters.

(Hat tip: Politics in the Zeros.)

The Bush Administration is about to release a budget that is loaded with phony assumptions, tricks, and other lies. But what else is new. As the New York Times' Edmund L. Andrews reports:

To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security.

To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.

By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.

But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window.

Not counting Social Security. Not counting Iraq and Afghanistan. Not counting the huge costs this president's policies will create conveniently after the five-year window (prescription drugs and making the tax cuts permanent).

As budget expert Stanley Collender said, "I've been watching this more than 30 years, and I have never seen anything quite this egregious."

Do you remember when Republican leaders used to lecture America about balanced budgets and the need for truth in our government?

How naive we all were to have listened to them.

But future generations will surely appreciate the red ink the Bush Administration is piling up. Who could not celebrate this large and growing tax we are forcing onto future generations?

The libraries in Salinas, California, are soon going to close because of a lack of funds. This will make Salinas, a city of 150,000 in Monterey County, the largest in the nation without a public library.

That's not exactly a distinction one would expect for the former home of novelist and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck.

City Manager Dave Mora said Salinas was not equipped to weather the sales tax revenue decline that came with an economic downturn. With a large share of local property tax already funneled to the state, lawmakers decided to hold back a pool of vehicle licensing fees promised to local governments to balance their budget, which is costing Salinas $2.7 million.

Let's be clear on this point. Actually, that lawmaker who decided would be Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is the one who decided to cut the vehicle license fee as his first official act following his recall-election win: instantly making the state's budget problem $4 billion worse.

It must be the damn liberal bias that allows a newspaper not to make this point clear.

Anyway, closing libraries is but one of the many consequences of that decision -- and of the Republican Party's refusal to reconsider the more than $9 billion in tax cuts passed in California during the dot-com boom.

But, as we know all too well, only spending shall be reconsidered. Never must we look the tax cuts passed based on the rosy economic projections created during the boom times.

James Wolcott links to a story written by embedded Economist reporters about how our military is "failing to persuade Iraq's sour Sunni minority to co-operate" in the planned elections later this month. (The link requires an Economist subscription, or you can watch an ad to get 24-hour access to the web site.)

Given what the Economist reports, our failure to win hearts and minds should surprise no one.

THERE is only one traffic law in Ramadi these days: when Americans approach, Iraqis scatter. Horns blaring, brakes screaming, the midday traffic skids to the side of the road as a line of Humvee jeeps ferrying American marines rolls the wrong way up the main street. Every vehicle, that is, except one beat-up old taxi. Its elderly driver, flapping his outstretched hand, seems, amazingly, to be trying to turn the convoy back. Gun turrets swivel and lock on to him, as a hefty marine sergeant leaps into the road, levels an assault rifle at his turbanned head, and screams: “Back this bitch up, motherfucker!”

The old man should have read the bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: “Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied”. In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching within 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: “If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,” says a bullish lieutenant. “It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people.”

Yet armies can be good at war-fighting or good at peacekeeping but rarely good at both. And when America's well-drilled and well-fed fighters attempt subtler tasks than killing people, problems arise. At peacekeeping, peace-enforcing or policing, call it what you will, they are often inept. Even the best of them seem ignorant of the people whose land they are occupying —unsurprisingly, perhaps, when practically no American fighters speak Arabic. And, typically, the marine battalion in Ramadi has only four translators. Often American troops despair of their Iraqi interlocutors, observing that they “are not like Americans”.

American marines and GIs frequently display contempt for Iraqis, civilian or official. Thus the 18-year-old Texan soldier in Mosul who, confronted by jeering schoolchildren, shot canisters of buckshot at them from his grenade-launcher. “It's not good, dude, it could be fatal, but you gotta do it,” he explained. Or the marines in Ramadi who, on a search for insurgents, kicked in the doors of houses at random, in order to scream, in English, at trembling middle-aged women within: “Where's your black mask?” and “Bitch, where's the guns?”

One of the 9-11 Commission's key recommendations was to consolidate the number of committees that have oversight and budget authority over the Department of Homeland Security.

Congress is not so keen on the idea. As the Washington Post's Walter Pincus writes:

The commission found that homeland security officials reported to 88 congressional committees and subcommittees last year. The commission report cited an expert witness who called that "perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development."

Instead, the commissioners recommended the House and Senate each have a single committee to review each year's budget and provide oversight for homeland security activities.

When Congress comes back next week, there will be fewer panels, but not by very much, largely because House and Senate committee and subcommittee chairmen have fought off most attempts to limit their jurisdictions.

This is, alas, just another example of how 9-11 did not change everything.

Perhaps as a present for her impending elevation to Secretary of State, someone could purchase a ticket to the new film "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" for Condoleeza Rice.

Based on her sworn statements, it might be nice way for her to expand her worldview. If nothing else, she can learn that even if she could not have imagined someone hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings, a potential presidential assassin did.

In 1974.

It was news and everything. Now it is a movie.

Here's the Secretary of State-designate during her 9-11 Commission testimony:

I think that concern about what I might have known or we might have known was provoked by some statements that I made in a press conference. I was in a press conference to try and describe the August 6 memo, which I've talked about here in my opening remarks and which I talked about with you in the private session.

And I said, at one point, that this was a historical memo, that it was -- it was not based on new threat information. And I said, "No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon" -- I'm paraphrasing now -- "into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile."

As I said to you in the private session, I probably should have said, "I could not have imagined," because within two days, people started to come to me and say, "Oh, but there were these reports in 1998 and 1999. The intelligence community did look at information about this."

To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.

I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst. (emphasis added)

Samuel Joseph Byck (1930–February 22, 1974) was an unemployed tire salesman who attempted to hijack a plane from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on February 22, 1974. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Byck shot and killed one of the pilots on the DC-9 Delta Airlines Flight 523, wounded another, then grabbed a nearby passenger and ordered her to "fly the plane". He was shot and wounded through the cabin door by police during the attempt and committed suicide; a gasoline bomb was found under his body.

Happy New Year!

Among the many things I wish for 2005 is that we can avoid having, as Atrios puts it, "serious conversations about the relative merits of various government issued "torture memos."